Azur Lane: Warship Gunner

DING-DONG-DONG-DING!

Ah, there it was: the sound of the School bell having just been rung, signaling the end of the school day. Well, he would be glad to be rid of it for the foreseeable future.

The moment that it was heard, each student inside the class became a buzz with chatter with the teacher packing their stuff up and leaving after wishing them well in their endeavors. Since they were all high school graduates who had their own futures to consider, it wasn't likely that they would be coming back here, with some exceptions who wanted to either get jobs teaching the new generation. Then there was the majority who had their own dreams to pursue, their own goals in life that they wanted or had the simple desire to fade into the crowd of masses that was the Japanese population, unwilling to stand out and preferring to be simply one of many white sheep in this den called Japan.

Not him though, nope no way.

Seated in his seat located close to the wall separating the classroom from the corridor outside, one young male hummed thoughtfully to himself while looking at his phone which nobody would be able to see without peering at it from behind him, looking nonchalant as all heck. The male in question was a rather tall one, about 7 foot 3 which can be seen as strange for someone of Japanese descent, with a build that suggested this male be someone with strong capabilities as an athlete: well-defined arms with visible muscle but not at bodybuilder levels, with a defined jawline and a sharp gaze behind his facial features. His black hair, common as any Japanese person, was styled upwards in a v-like shape letting his entire forehead be seen as well as his sharp green eyes. His outfit remained as the school uniform consisting of a blue open blazer, a white dress shirt with a red tie, tanned pants, and black dress shoes.

However, the most eye-catching features would probably be the signs of past fights leaving their marks, such as the scar in the middle of his lower lip that reached his chin, one shaped like an X over the left cheek, and one across his forehead. Combine this with the various scars adorning his arms and how rough his hands looked and needless to say, the male teen looked like someone who got up to no good daily.

Right now the male currently ignored everything around him while blocking their chatter through the use of a couple of black headphones with red outlines. Looking at him, one could assume that he had quite the vested interest in whatever it was that was being shown on his phone, though next to nobody moved to find out. They were either too focused on their own discussions or were... aware... of his reputation thus chose to give him a wide berth.

That is, save for one person.

"Yo, dude!"

A loud cry erupted forth before an arm fell onto this male, landing on his right shoulder from behind before a weight pressed itself against his back. Even with the surprise and abruptness that these actions possessed, the male didn't react very much, in fact, he hardly even flinched while he idly glanced upwards towards the source of the voice. "Hello Keijo," he remarked neutrally, his eyes returning to his phone's screen soon after.

Keijo, the student who had barged into the tall male's privacy, grinned like a loon as he leaned down to peer at the screen. "Cool, you got into the game I recommended! What do you think, pretty sweet right?" He asked, a happy yet slightly lecherous giggle escaping his lips. Keijo himself looked to be a male of more average Japanese male height, which was 5 foot 7, sporting light chestnut brown hair styled like a blonde knuckleheaded ninja and hazel colored eyes. Like the other, he wore the same uniform although he had his blazer opened up. Not only that but unlike the other male his didn't have as athletic a build, in fact, he had a build typical of a Japanese otaku gamer, one with little exercise and hardly any muscle.

It's not like the other male would mention this to his face, though. He had long since given up doing so.

"Meh, it's so-so." The male replied while he tapped on the phone's screen with his thumb, resulting in the screen showing a bunch of characters in a card-like format. Each character had names, a portrait of a female, and various names, though the male did narrow his eyes slightly at the image for a few seconds before returning to his previous expression. "This Mobile Game, Azur Lane, is an alright one I guess..."

Keigo looked almost affronted when the male said this without as much as a tinge of emotion. "Huh?! What do you mean, dude?! You gay or something? What's so 'meh' about a game full of gorgeous babes who follow your orders?!" he exclaimed, a flushed expression of perversion forming on his face while a similar feeling grin followed, already immersed within his fantasies.

Azur Lane.

That's the game that these two males were talking to one another about, a game developed in China. Set in an alternate timeline of World War II, players engage in side-scrolling shooter gameplay, using female moe anthropomorphic characters based on warships from the war's major participants. Other gameplay elements, like customizing a home and marrying in-game characters, were also present.

First launched in China in May and Japan in September 2017, Azur Lane quickly became popular, especially in Japan where the player count reached five million within four months after its release. Back then, Players had voted the game among the top five on Google Play's Best Game of 2017 list for the region. Critics attributed the game's popularity to its original and well-designed gameplay system while an English-language version started open beta in August 2018 and was formally released in May 2019. Later, on December 18, the English version was expanded to the Latin American region.

But considering its popularity among weebs, essentially it had to do with the abundance of waifus in the form of ship girls, with them being commanded by the player who was known in-game as the commander or 'Shikkan' in the Japanese language. So in reality it was simply another game about collecting waifus with a self-insert protagonist, meant to indulge weebs in their own fantasies of having tons of girls after them, basically what the majority of isekai anime or harem anime, in general, tried to do. Fortunately, there are a lot more types of anime than just this one, such as sports and stuff, but strangely enough, isekai's huge popularity has made it highly commercialized throughout the years.

Not too long ago, Keijo had gotten into it because of the abundance of waifus, as one can imagine. He'd been stuck on the game for hours, even started writing fanfictions which had been mostly smut fics with the commander and the waifus he found likable... which were a lot, in all honesty. After a while of gaming and building a sizeable collection of Shipgirls, Keijo had decided to try and get his friend into the game, said friend having initially refused to do so since he had studies to do. But with their final exams over and done with, he had nothing but time on his hands, hence said friend finally caved in and gave the game a shot himself.

Hence, their current conversation.

"The game itself is alright, and the waifus are abundant like you mentioned, and from what I've researched there seem to be some interesting story elements to it." The male explained, his lips pressed together into a firm line while finally tearing his eyes away from the screen. He let his gaze settle onto Keijo with its sharpness ever-present. "But there's just a few things which keep me from enjoying the game truly."

Blinking owlishly after returning to normality, Keijo looked back to his friend with a curious expression on his face. "Huh, well that's something, I guess..." he mused uncertainly, when he had recommended the game to his friend earlier in their school year Keigo hadn't seen anything wrong with the game. It did what it did and it did it well, that was pretty much fine with him, so it didn't occur to him that his friend would find any meaningful flaws to it. Though he probably should have figured that considering how long he had known him. "If you ask me though Kosuke, it does what it does and it does it well, so I'm not complaining."

At this Kosuke, the young male who had been recommended Azur Lane nodded his head in understanding. "That's true, over the years you haven't been playing games with any critical intent in mind. You're more the kind of guy to just live in the present and go with the flow," he remarked, thinking back down the years they had known one another.

Kosuke and Keiko went way back, perhaps back to the beginning of middle school actually. They had met under pretty normal circumstances like being in the same class, but back then Keijo hadn't been NEARLY as outgoing as he was right now while Kosuke had been more of a chillaxed kind of kid, not concerned with anything. One wouldn't have expected them to become best mates with one another the way they did, and initially, they weren't that close... at least until the middle of their second middle school year when something happened which changed things for them. Ever since, they had held each other's backs throughout the school year, constantly helping each other out with their weaker subjects so they could pass. Combine that with the OTHER friends they had made, and one got the group of boys that they had formed.

"So, what are these 'flaws' that you found with my current obsession?"

"Well..." Kosuke began, looking back to the screen which showed the Azur Lane main menu all the while trailing off to get his thoughts together. Despite having his ears covered, he still heard his friend's words thanks to having the volume muted. It had been a trick he had devised since middle school when he hadn't wanted to talk to anyone: put earphones or headphones in, pocket said phone, and whether one was actually listening to music or not people generally didn't talk since they saw that one was too engulfed in music for conversation.

Of course, he'd shared it with his mates too, why wouldn't he? He wasn't the only one who got annoyed with people after all.

Finally, he opened his mouth once more, saying the first thing that came to his mind. "They're mostly personal flaws I noticed really, but the first one's the fact that it follows the standard trope of a bunch of cute anime girls surrounding a standard self-insert protagonist. I've never really been a fan of that, and have always wished it would be changed so that the protagonist either: has a better appearance or has a proper personality. Worse still, is that this one doesn't even have a physical form OR personality, so it's even HARDER to believe these girls even respect him let alone have affection for him."

Keijo's eyes flashed with an understanding of what his friend was trying to tell him, a look of 'oh you...' plastered onto his face. "Ah, I get you. Still, since the game's meant to be a waifu simulator the SKK is merely meant to be a way for the player to be immersed into the game world. Kinda should have figured you'd find an issue with that, there..." he remarked, trailing off with a nervous chuckle.

"Yeah, and that leads me to my second point, the so-called 'affection system' is poorly implemented if you ask me," Kosuke added on while putting his phone down and switching over to the internet, looking up another site on it before continuing his pseudo review of the game. "Affection by its base form is essentially when one showcases that they view another strongly be it a person or an object. But here, I can hardly call what these girls show affection since A: a lot don't have much in terms of personality, and B: the SKK isn't even a proper character in the story, his role is even more pathetic in my eyes. That's probably due to the number of girls in this series, it's likely too much to give them diverse personality traits so they're probably relying on the fandom to expand there."

On that, both boys could agree just from the shared glance that they had between one another with Keijo sitting on the side of a desk behind him. "In that case, I can somewhat see why you'd be annoyed at that, I can somewhat relate to it too. If you ask me, the super rare ships and the elite ones are more focused on than the lower tier shipgirls, hence why the others aren't as interesting." the brown-haired male mused thoughtfully, thinking about stuff he hadn't really bothered to think about previously.

That was something he always found interesting when talking with Kosuke, he could somehow always make one question things from a different perspective than what one is used to. Perhaps that was why nobody had won against him in an argument before, the guy saw things differently compared to other guys his age, with more of a calculating yet philosophical perspective. Sometimes it felt like he was talking to an old man rather than a guy he had grown up with...

Made sense that the guy wanted to apply for a uni course in political history in the future.

"It's because of these that I just cannot see myself as a Commander for these females." Kosuke finally admitted his tone back to its normal volume and tone. He closed the Azur Lane app before switching his phone off, leaning back on his seat while pocketing his hands inside his school-issued pants, his eyes gazing up at the ceiling. "Perhaps it's a silly aspect of myself, but I would rather fight on the front lines than stick to the rear."

Keijo hummed at that, understanding in his gaze. He should have figured that to be something Kosuke would have said, but like a lot of things, his inner weeb had come out and taken over his thoughts. It happened a lot whenever he found something like a new anime, waifu, or in this case, a game about collecting waifus. He had heard that Azur Lane had an anime adaptation recently, but it wasn't done all that well so he hadn't watched it. Maybe he would if he had nothing better to watch. "Well, to each their own, I'm just happy to have a harem of sexy ship girls, hehehehe..." He remarked with a perverted giggle, his inner weeb slowly resurfacing.

Kosuke merely glanced at him when he mentioned this. Maybe he was what the internet called a 'boomer' but he didn't really care much for weeb stuff, he preferred to be a simple casual more than anything. "To each their own, then. By the way, you got the message from the others?"

Upon hearing that question, Keijo snapped out of his weebiness once again, this time replacing it with an excited grin. "Heck yeah! Since we're now graduates before we go to our college, we're gonna celebrate! You headed to the Cafe, too?" he questioned happily at the thought of meeting up with the rest of the crew to celebrate finally graduating the audacious hell that's known as highschool.

Another nod came from Kosuke in response to this, a slight smile forming on his lips at the possibility of celebrating with his mates in his mind. "You bet your ass I'm headed on over. Been studying like crazy for the last few weeks before these damn exams so I didn't have to retake anything. Not missing this one for the world." He replied, his smile widening a bit at the end knowing that he had done all he could with these exams.

"Alright!" Keijo cheered, throwing a fist to the air above them. He then lowered it so that it was outstretched towards his friend's face. "Let's promise to meet up then, we have a lot of free vacation time before college after all," he stated, smirking widely to the point where it could be seen as a grin.

One which Kosuke mirrored, forming a fist and making a fist bump with the brown-haired male. "Oh, you know it."


(Scene Change)


That afternoon, Kosuke returned home after a time celebrating with his mates, his parents had gone out on their business trip a week prior so they would be back in a couple of days. His younger brother Sousuke would be back soon himself from his friend's house, having gone there to play videogames which was a typical thing for a guy to do. Kosuke didn't mind though, after having had a whole afternoon socializing with his bros he wouldn't mind having the house to himself, plus thanks to his mother he had decent housekeeping skills so it wasn't like he would be going hungry.

His family owned a rather traditional Japanese style house, his parents being a bit more old fashioned than a lot of folks around the neighborhood. As in, the whole house had one floor for its essentials, with tatami mat flooring, sliding doors, and wooden engawa verandas. The genkan hallway for removing one's footwear was present as well, with the house flooring raised a little off the ground to prevent dampness from entering and to keep the living area from flooding in the case of heavy rain. The tataki, AKA lower level, was traditionally made of packed earth, although concrete was more common today. After removal, shoes are put in the getabako—a cabinet that derives its name from geta, or wooden clogs, that Japanese people once commonly wore.

Rooms were divided by partitions made from washi, Japanese paper, though the previously mentioned Tatami flooring covered with woven rush was perhaps the most essential element in a traditional house. The faint smell of tatami had a distinct characteristic of Japanese rooms, and the springy but firm mats were pleasant to sit or lie on. Tatami also absorbs nitrogen dioxide, helping to clean the air.

Fortunately, his father had managed to convince his mother to put electricity into the house though, which had allowed him and his brother access to things like consoles and various other modern stuff.

Once he entered the house, taking his shoes off to store them in the cabinet, Kosuke went and cooked himself something to eat, that being some simple vegetables, some beef, and a drink of milk, before finishing it and sorting the dishes out. He then headed towards his bedroom, intending to play some games for the night before heading off to bed.

Entering his bedroom, which didn't have much besides the futon, a TV, and a bunch of consoles on either side of it, Kosuke already had an idea of what he wanted to play for the day. Compared to Azur Lane (which he had already reset the commissions for the next few hours upon returning home) there were few other games that he played that weren't to do with Warships. World of Warships had been something he had been getting into only recently thanks to having saved up enough Yen to buy a laptop that could run it on at least 30 frames per second. But that wasn't what he wanted to play right now, not even the other series he had gotten into.

No, what he wanted to play was more of an old classic in his eyes...

Naval Ops Warship Gunner for the PS2.

'Alright, time to return to my beloved ships...' Kosuke thought, a small but eager smile forming on his lips with a matching glimmer in his eyes. Before all that though, he quickly changed out of his school uniform into something a bit more comfortable: a black hoodie with a white muscle shirt beneath it, white sweat pants and finally put some bandages around the middle of his feet as well as around his ankles. He put some around his hands too, letting two for each limb flow downwards resulting in him looking more like a relaxed martial arts practitioner than anything else. Even put a red baseball cap atop his head despite it being indoors.

Hey, it was his room so he did what he freaking wanted, so don't judge!

Once Kosuke finished his changing and brushed his teeth, he promptly prepped for his gaming marathon. Fortunately, he didn't have any work to do since he had already graduated high school, and college prep had already been finalized so he didn't have to worry there. Dropping down in front of his TV, the male booted up his old PS2 console, a sense of excitement that he didn't feel too often.

This was an old series, developed during the PS2 era by Koei before their merger, the Naval Ops series (he had the original, its sequel, and its spin-off) was a bunch of vehicle Simulation games that revolved mainly around their gameplay: going on a series of missions as a warship. Not just any warship though, but one that the players built THEMSELVES, with a variety of different hulls to choose from, ranging from small destroyers to massive aircraft carriers, even a few hybrid designs, and the sequel sporting the possibility of making submarines.

The BEST thing about them was the fact that he could build his own ships though, and there's quite the amount of creativity involved and near-endless possibilities. For example, a battleship that could rapid-fire its main guns was possible, a cruiser that can move at nearly 100 knots, things like that were possible in this game. Similar to Azur Lane these games were set in an alternate WW2 with futuristic weapons like lasers, shields, etc, which did WONDERS for ship customization. One could even make a fleet of 8 ships at a time, hence why he had done that very thing, resulting in him having his own sizeable fleet with their own quirks to them.

It was a series which he preferred the most out of those which he had that focused around naval combat. Speaking of which, if there was one fantasy he had regarding Azur Lane, then it would be that he would have liked to have a commander with a personality, with ideals to believe in, the ability to take to the battlefield himself, and FINALLY the ability to command his own ship to take to the battlefield. Perhaps he was a bit old fashioned, but Kosuke enjoyed things like what people called 'toxic masculinity' such as being tough in a fight, being able to keep calm and deal with things rationally. They made him feel like he had a purpose, that he had something that he should never lose to anyone, to HELL with what other people said about it. Manliness was, to him, a dying art form that males currently lacked, something which disappointed him though he felt that it wasn't completely their fault, plus he had a bunch of bros who felt similarly to him despite their quirks suggesting otherwise.

Anyways, whilst his PS2 Booted itself up, Kosuke pulled out his Phone and noticed some notifications from his Azur Lane app. 'Hmph, looks like I got commissions to check out...' the male thought and decided to do just that while waiting for his game to start. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Kosuke opened Azur Lane after tapping on its icon with his index finger...

"Hm?"

The moment that he did so, something quickly caught his attention. Instead of the usual loading screen with an image of some of the Azur Lane shipgirls, there was this massive icon on his screen, one which dominated the majority of it with its size while the background was a cyan blue color. As for what the icon was he recognized it as clear as day, as it had been something which as a 'commander' (he had to resist the urge to gag at that designation) he had to save up for the more important events that went on in the game:

A Wisdom Cube.

"A Wisdom Cube...?" Kosuke wondered frowning, eyeing the icon warily since the moment he saw it, he knew something had REALLY gone wrong. "Why the hell am I seeing a picture like this? I'm sure I didn't get hacked, my phone's got antivirus protection software..." he mumbled under his breath. "More than that, there are a few differences between this Wisdom Cube compared to the ones in the game."

Sure, the icon on Kosuke's phone may seem like a Wisdom Cube that has the purpose of constructing the Shipgirls, with loads of theories, mysteries (especially with the whole operation siren stuff), and lore surrounding them, but THIS one was a pure crimson color unlike the usual blue ones, with a dark core at the center instead of a pure white one. Not only that, but it seemed to have a bunch of ring-like objects surrounding its form similar to the planet in outer space called Jupiter, and if he were to look closer then Kosuke could see that each ring seemed to be made from what looked like smaller versions of this Wisdom Cube. 'Bizarre doesn't even begin to describe this...'

What the hell was this thing?

What was going on here?

Questions like these filled his mind, but it wasn't like he would be finding any answers any time soon, Kosuke felt. Not without investigating this strange icon first, since if it had frozen his phone as a result of some kind of hacking (though a growing part of him suspected this wasn't hacking at all) then his parents wouldn't let him hear the end of it when they got back home. "I swear, this better not be a bug..." the male mumbled under his breath while he tapped on the icon to see if that would do anything.

He would later come to regret that action, considering how the moment his fingertips touched his phone's screen it began glowing. Glowing like the light of a lighthouse which gradually increased in brightness, forcing the male to cry out while holding an arm over his face to cover his eyes. This also allowed him to miss another detail that happened to occur, his PS2 starting to glow in similar colors to the Wisdom Cube icon on his phone.

Not long after that, did Kosuke start to feel faint, and before long his whole consciousness slipped into the realm of oblivion.


(Scene Change)


For a while, Kosuke did NOT have a clue about what was happening, in fact, he had lost all sense of both feeling as well as time. He floated within the dark depths of the unconscious land, unable to move, unable to think, unable to do anything. The ultimate form of powerlessness.

Fortunately, this wouldn't remain as his fate for eternity, for soon his darkness got enveloped in a bright light that started occurring right in front of him, somewhat mirroring how he had gotten here in the first place he would later come to realize once his brain booted itself up.

Though that wasn't without any lasting effects on him, however.

"Uuuurrrghhhh... argh... my head..."

Loud groans escaped his head while the male grimaced, holding the side of his head while he felt like he had been hit by some large blunt object... and survived. Usually one would die from such a hit, so if he had indeed survived such a thing then that would explain this INSUFFERABLE headache. All the while, the saying that 'Fortune Favors the Bold' got applied to his situation (whatever it was, he wasn't sure yet), as Kosuke slowly sat up from his former prone position and into a normal sitting one.

A moment or two passed with him rubbing his head to try and nurse his headache which slowly began to fade into nothingness, and when it finally DID pass the male found himself slowly opening his eyes. Now, if he were to look back onto this moment in the future he would have mentioned how part of him had expected to have been lying on his back in the middle of his room, his game loaded with the Naval Ops theme music playing from his TV. He would have then put what had happened behind him and focused on gaming for the rest of the night, simply continuing with his life till his parents got back home so he could bring up his phone situation to them.

Unfortunately, just like a lot of things, the reality was often disappointing...

Hence why Kosuke almost flipped his lid when he saw that he was NOT in his room.

"Wha-?! What the fucking hell?!"

In fact, he was anywhere BUT in his room, with the cold wind of the outside smashing into his face causing Kosuke to cover the said area with his right hand. Nevertheless, the sheer fact that he had wind where it shouldn't be derailed his state of mind, throwing him into the pits of dismay. As if to enact further comprehension, the sounds of seagulls screeching in the skies could be heard as they flew overhead with the smell of vast water reaching his nostrils. Beneath him, Kosuke felt the smooth textures of metal, as well as heard the sounds of water crashing against something, while as if to add to his confusion he could somewhat hear the pinging sound of some kind of sonar or a reader somewhere, every few seconds or so if he were to stop and count the intervals between pings.

All of these things, combined together within his brain while the teen stood tall from his previous sitting position, resulted in a single question exploding into existence within his mind, the single most important one for his newfound situation:

WHERE THE FUCK WAS HE?!


Chapter end!

Hello, and welcome to my new fanfic: Azur Lane Warship Gunner.

This will be my first ever fanfic posted into the Azur Lane section, so I wanted to try something a little bit different. Yeah it does have the traditional isekai elements, but considering that the father of isekais Mushouku Tensei had its first episode released recently it's a good time to try. Plus I know there is hardly any AL elements yet, but this chapter's more of an introductory one than anything, so I can set a few things up for the possible future. Also, several things about this story:

One, it's experimental for the time being. Depending on the reaction it gets I'll continue it. This fic still marks my first entry into the Azur Lane fanfiction fandom though, it always will.

Two, in no way, is this a self insert fanfiction. A Self Insert, in my eyes, is a bland-looking, personality-less slate. They usually are like this with very little else to say about them so that viewers can see themselves as that character, kind of like a meat suit. They're usually boring, easily get strung along, and are generally only there for the whole insertion element, with very few characteristics that allow for people to immerse themselves into them easier. It helps if they're generic ass looking too. If a Character has their own ideals, their own views, likes, dislikes, and are believable, then they are not self-inserts. Just look at Hajime from Arifureta. Originally he looked like a typical self-insert, but later on, he became an edgy-looking badass with his own ideology. WAY better than a pushover and his actions is still understandable considering his situation. He EARNED his harem, too.

Three, There may be a few twists that might surprise you in this one, but then again I can't say that for everyone. Hopefully, you might get some enjoyment out of this fic.

Four, for the MC, thin of his facial features like his hairstyle to be like those from the teenage Kazuma Kiryu from the Yakuza series. I tried to write it down the best I could, but there wasn't much to go off on. Plus, expect a few outfit changes for the lad, I've always been particular about being as descriptive as possible about my male OCs. Thus, I believe guys can be JUST as fashionable as girls can be if they tried. Look at Sung Jin Woo from Solo Levelling or Ichigo from Bleach: two male fashion drip lords right there.

Five, at this point I do have some ideas for how to write this as a proper fic, but what I'm unsure of is for which faction would Kosuke encounter first? Part of me wants to go for the smaller factions like the northern union or one of the french factions, heck maybe an Ashes faction member. This isn't going to be a typical commander fic, although I do intend on forming a harem in time. Who's going to be in it isn't set in stone as of yet, though.

Hope you all found this chapter somewhat enjoyable, and am eager to hear what you think can happen.

PEACE OUT!